30' cruising catamaran repair log

Patching holes. This one was about 3.5" diameter and did pretty much a 12/1 scarf with matching panel. Trying to minimize screw holes. Inside is even more rube-goldberg as I was pushing the skin against the patch. In the background is one of a couple bi-axial fiberglass patches where I had to grind off some delamin/cracking. I used about 3 layers of varying sizes for each. After I remove the peel ply I'll determine if that was enough. Seems like it.

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So closing in on closing up the hull holes. Scarfing in patches isn't perfect with my small grinder but I'm getting lots of squeeze out and seems like it is good. If an area is gouged a bit too much I can add a touch of thickened epoxy.

The second pic with two holes shows where I also chased some delamination. It was a factory layer, the second one from the top, that separated from the first layer. Might even be factory defect as the color of wood is different there - more reddish. Or maybe that just happened from oxidation or something when it let go. I'll patch the holes with wood, and add some cloth in those areas - build up a couple layers or so.

Due to one side's shoulder area being hit hard and causing delam in the duracore strips and roving, with some good bulkhead shoulder crushings, I've cut all that area off. Plus, I think it will reduce the boat's slabsided appearance somewhat by revealing the sheerline.

The dust collector seems to be undersized and pretty worthless for this particular task.

Charlyipad asked about deck delam.. here's a couple instances. First is up by the board trunk and I've ground off some of the cove and roving.. some of the underside deck plywood has peeled off. I'm going to do a blind cove/rove here because once I put the side hull back on, it won't be very accessible. The last pics are near the transom. I've chipped off (with a chisel and hammer) all the broken cove and will re-cove and rove inside and rove outside with 24 oz. bi-axial.

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Due to one side's shoulder area being hit hard and causing delam in the duracore strips and roving, with some good bulkhead shoulder crushings, I've cut all that area off. Plus, I think it will reduce the boat's slabsided appearance somewhat by revealing the sheerline.

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James, i don't understand that last sentence. Are you going to build it back different? Have you considered composite chainplates?

The appearance of the boat always grated on me - maybe been raised in my formative years on the classics in WoodenBoat mag, I always love the sheerline, which is hidden in this pic. I'm going to rebuild similar to that pic I posted to your thread recently showing James's boat at sunset - has the sheerline and I think it improves the boat visually. I think I can reduce weight somewhat getting rid of all that roving over the duracore. Probably not much.

As for composite chainplates, I've not given much thought. I do have his old stainless plates I figured I would reuse - but he does seem to specify larger ones these days. I could do a pic of the chainplates - what would you suggest? You can see it in that shoulder cut-off pic above where you questioned my sentence.

Re chainplates I certainly am no expert. I can affirm that composites are a lot of work especially if working alone. if you are going to be replacing whole panel sections, it might be easier, and might make for a sturdier boat with no other penalties. If I had to do it over I would pay a little more attention to the leads.

A lot of life has passed - so not a whole lot of action on my repair. I have started in prepping for the cabin soles now. First pic is a template to size the sole, second is vacuum bagging 1/2" balsa core to 3mm doorskins (luan mahogany) from 25 years ago - when it was more quality. Been a long time since I've vacuum bagged. Using regular 6 mil. visqueen here but thinking of investing in some actual bag material and trying a more quiet, slower vacuum than the shopvac here.

Hey James- post 22 is that a derrick you have for pulling crab pots or was that a temp. mast? I have been thinking of making a lightweight derrick/downrigger for loading stuff and fishing, and looking for ideas.

We were getting our foot in the door for a new 32' boat limited new crab fishery - so we used a 3 or 4" aluminum pipe (telescoping) that we found, with a mast step we found somewhere, and used a wing strut off a Beaver DeHavilland airplane as a "boom" to hang our hydraulic crab pot lifter off. Ran it from a 5hp Honda portable engine. One day we did just rig up a blue tarp and went trolling for silver (coho) salmon.

Should change post title from repair log to "repair and outfitting" since a lot of the repair is done and now I'm just on to building stuff. The photos are of putting in the soles - test fitting after cutting, fiberglassing, cutting out and gluing on lips for the sole hatches, coating the hull bottom with more epoxy tinted white.. and the mostly finished (short of some cleanup) sole. Going to be doing the same for the second hull. Have started that now but the shop is now below freezing so no more gluing til it warms up. I can still build things in the heated portion of the shop though, just not where the boat is.

Gluing up the port hull floor access hatch lips, using all my clamps (excepting some pipe clamps). Took some time off for travel - but trying now to get something done. Temps are 0 degrees F. now so boatshed is pretty cold. Got my woodshop heated to about 50 F.

My usually procedure for stuff like this is to screw it together with battery drill to hold until the glue cures, then pull the screws out and fill the holes... I find its quicker and less hassle for me...

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